Before we can talk about The Grand Tour, we have to talk about Top Gear. <\/p>\n
Top Gear was a strange show. At it’s high point it was the most widely watched factual TV program in the world<\/a>. The show began in 1977 as a fussy, just-the-facts automobile program. Based on the clips I’ve seen on YouTube it had a dash of humor, but it was still dedicated to something approximating automotive journalism. The show died out in the 90s and was then rebooted in 2002. The new version of the show was a little slicker and maybe had a little more joking around, but it was still trying to review cars and discuss motoring news. <\/p>\n Over the next decade the humor element of the show grew. It became more about the hosts and less about the cars. The cast seemed to go through a certain degree of flanderization<\/a>. Jeremy Clarkson got more bombastic. James May became even more of a fussy old man. There was a proliferation of short jokes about Richard Hammond.<\/p>\n BBC was in a strange spot. They had the most popular television show in the world, but the show also caused a lot of controversy and complaints, usually (but not always) due to Jeremy Clarkson’s big mouth. I can’t begin to sum up the differences the two had, but they were far-reaching. In 2015 after numerous disagreements and warnings, Clarkson finally went too far<\/a> and the BBC dumped him. Hammond and May jumped ship shortly after, along with the fourth invisible member of the team, producer Andy Wilman. <\/p>\n Amazon hired the four of them and created the on-demand series The Grand Tour<\/em>. It’s the same basic setup: Clarkson, Hammond, and May drive all kinds of vehicles in far-flung locations while making fun of each other. The budgets were bigger than ever. They were free to go anywhere you could physically get a production crew and dick around with stupidly expensive cars. No more fussy BBC management to placate. <\/p>\n